Shattered Endings
by OneMagician
Summary: What if the Spell of Shattered Sight DID have an effect on the Dark One after all and he wasn't immune to it, while Belle was...? Very angsty Romeo and Julia tragedy with a very shattered ending leading up to the mid-season finale, so beware and don't read if you're looking for a happy one - you'll not find it here. But you might be well entertained for a few minutes if you do.


**Shattered Endings**

„Are you still there?" a little voice whispered.

It could have been that of a boy or a young man, but Belle wasn't sure. Pushing herself up on her elbows where she'd fallen, she didn't know how to answer. She wasn't sure whether or not she _was_ there. The last thing she remembered was the silvery sparkling dust that conveyed the Snow Queen's curse coming out of the venting system, streaming through the cracks in the doorframe, front and back, and drifting into the open barred window of the little restroom of Mr. Gold's Pawnshop. It had been everywhere, and she'd closed her eyes and held her breath, wondering how long she could.

When she'd opened them again and resumed breathing, only tiny shards of reality remained in place of yesterday's certainties; fragments of truth, and slivers of love and being in love – all within a mess of furiously screaming, thrashing rage. Most of it was directed at the man who'd placed the already broken reality, interpretations and half-truths, and pieces of a dream inside her heart, but her heart struggled against all odds to hold on to its own image of Rumpelstiltskin even still.

The Shattered Sight was gnawing at her, taking chunks out of her reasoning and trying to convince her he was to blame for everything that had gone wrong. Some section of her warm and beating heart more familiar with his tarnished one than any other living soul's in Storybrooke was trying to persuade her mind to admit that she _knew_ it was his fault. It had to be, because a man as powerful as he didn't just stand by and let things happen. He wasn't in the habit of simply watching things unfold – he was usually at the very center of them when they did, seen by all or seen by none, whichever suited him best.

_"Tell me, are you still there?"_ the voice repeated, more urgently this time, imploringly, and she sat up, trying to regain herself, to steady herself, rubbing her eyes to clear her vision.

_"Are you still there? Won't you tell me if you're still there?"_ the voice pleadingly continued questioning her, begging for an answer she couldn't give just yet as her world went in and out of focus.

Cutting the heel of her hand and one knee on the remnants of the cup she'd smashed when she'd fallen as she now slowly turned on one side to raise herself up off the floor, she realized that she'd finally managed to destroy _the_ cup, and that uncluttered her thoughts in an instant. The cup was no longer chipped, it was irrevocably damaged beyond repair because she'd dropped it, and Rumple wasn't here to fix it. Her blood dripping all over the polished, dark parquet boards drove home that fact quite bluntly. He'd sealed her in, but he hadn't stayed with her, and she had no idea what he expected her to do, no idea what to expect of him.

He'd been standing out on the street after he'd talked to Killian Jones and received an object that looked remotely like a music box from the pirate's hands for some reason. Then, Hook had left, looking less pleased with himself than he usually did, and Rumple had just stood there, Kris Dagger in one hand, music box in the other, quietly observing the purple cloud rolling in over them, unaware of her presence behind the window.

She'd felt the heavy magic that had brought the curse with every fiber of her being moments before the dust had started falling from the dense, unnatural haze in the sky, and she'd wished he'd change his mind and come into the shop when her phone had buzzed with a text message from Henry. Rumple _had_ told her he felt obliged to find his grandson and see if he was alright before they'd left Granny's, but he hadn't; the text had told her that Henry was, or had been, in Regina's office, of all the places the sorceress could have taken him.

_"Please! Are you still there?"_ The voice beseeched her, coming from all directions at once, reverberating a deep-rooted sorrow that seemed to be weaving in and out of the breathiness of it.

"Where _are_ you?" she finally mumbled, getting to her feet uncertainly, her eyes scanning the empty shop. "_Who_ are you?"

Her head was pounding and she winced, feeling for the lump where she thought she might have hit it earlier. Wiping her hands on her skirt, she told herself that she may be imagining the voice. She very probably was.

"I'm here," the voice returned then as though its owner could hear her thoughts, and there was a hint of relief sounding through the anguish at the statement. "I've been here for a while, waiting for you to hear me call."

"Look," she snapped, irritatedly spinning around as her eyes frantically searched the premises once again, shoulders drawn, back rigid and eyes narrow, "who_ever_ you are: I don't have time for this!"

Silence.

She was beyond angry. It was a feeling she was unaccustomed to because, somehow, anger wasn't in her repertoire by nature. The welling sensation struck her as alien, and she wanted it to go away, but the more she fought it, the more its poison seemed to spread. She was angry at herself for having taken the bait and answered the aggravatingly familiar voice she couldn't place, and she was angry at whoever it belonged to and was hounding her so at a moment like this. And, she was angry at Rumple for having gotten them into this mess in the first place.

By now, she was positive that someone she had long forgotten about must be playing some kind of sick game here, but she couldn't imagine who or why. She didn't believe that there was anyone physically inside the shop capable of actually doing her real harm, but she wasn't about to stay and find out for sure, so she turned her attention to the door, intent on leaving when she saw that Rumple was _still_ standing where he had been. She didn't know if she could, but she hoped so.

His back was turned to her, and the world around him was going crazy. She could see dwarves wielding pickaxes and an old friend with a shotgun. There was a princess with a sword and a friar with a crossbow, and an array of other people were doing things they never would have on the sidewalk, had her husband not stood by and watched all these last days.

She might be safe from the enraged mob that was beginning to scar the streets and lay waste to their town for as long as she stayed within of the protection spell Rumple had cast on the shop, but she suddenly had a feeling that it wasn't her he should have been afraid for. He'd implied that he'd be immune to the curse as such, and that _she'd_ be likely to feel like hurting him. Perhaps he'd been right, because she _did_ want to hurt him just a little bit right now, but most of the incense she'd felt washed away the moment she caught herself considering it, oddly enough.

How _could_ she hurt him, anyway? What could _she_ possibly do to him? _He_ had the dagger, and _he_ was immortal. She'd never had the dagger, as she well knew, and she was not.

The people all around him were not immortal either, and they were definitely out to get each other – and him. At first, she had no idea why he didn't teleport himself out of there as she watched Leroy and the other dwarves closing in on him in horror, pushing their way through the rampaging crowd. It took her a moment to realize that he probably would have if he could, but there was something wrong...

"No! _Don't!_" the voice cried out fearfully as she feverishly tried to turn the key in its lock, the other hand on the knob and meaning to come to his aid in whatever way she could. _"Don't go out there!"_

"Why would I _not_ go to him?" she spat back despite herself, thinking of how she'd left him time and again when Zelena had held power over him. Shattered Sight had not changed her self-perception, and she wasn't very proud of what was lodged there much more firmly than the last of the miniscule shards that had wafted into her eyes. They had all left him there, and she'd resolved never to do that again. "Why would I stay _here_ while Rumple is out _there_ and about to be torn apart?" she asked, shaking and kicking at the door, "I can take care of myself, and if anyone here is going to lay hands on him for anything he may or may not have done wrong, it will be _me_."

Rumpelstiltskin turned around just in that moment, as if he'd heard her, and the expression on his face shook her to the core. There was something in his eyes she'd never seen before as Archie began shoving him: Doubt. _Self-doubt,_ and the reason was quite obvious, at least to her: although he'd been wearing the exquisite Armani suit and matching winter coat she'd watched him put on in the morning just a few moments ago, he was wearing something different now. His expensive black coat with its fine lining of silk had been replaced by a coarse, brown peasant's tunic, saggy and bound at the waist by a length of rope instead of a belt, and the badly-fitted leggings he wore were typical of his guild in their old land. The Dark One had not been immune to the spell of Shattered Sight after all. However, the workings of this particular curse on a man already cursed had shattered the image and self-image both within and on the outside; it reversed what he, she, and everyone else perceived on a very tangible level. The outcome was what she, who'd always believed to know him best but also knew better than to trust her own judgment in that, saw when she looked at him.

_"Don't,"_ the voice screamed, _"I'm begging you!"_

But, Belle discovered that the door was only jammed; she'd been too hectic. She opened it, and she ran to Rumpelstiltskin, heedless of the pleas of the flawless, red baccara rose on the counter next to the telephone by the cash register. The blossoming flower had been there for as long as she'd been coming into the shop, but she'd never noticed it before. It never wilted, it never changed, and it never would as long as the sorcerer who'd cast the enchantment that kept it so lived. The rose itself would have chosen to remain there until the end of days, content with the manner of its existence, had it been aware of the reason for its cold awakening.

Belle left the door all the way open when she ran outside to her love, feeling his searing pain when the first pickaxe that could never kill him even now struck his back; feeling his anguish when he saw Will Scarlet engage the arrow that would pierce her heart one split second later. She never regretted a thing, though, and neither did he as he held her through the moments that followed. The irony of this didn't escape him, and he knew he'd brought it on himself – the Spinner was finally strong enough to admit that to himself.

When Gaston picked himself up off the floor only a few moments later, returned to his human form, he got a clear view of what had happened about halfway across the road, wishing he didn't every bit as much as Rumpelstiltskin had before he'd given in to the temptation to push the Kris Dagger into the hands of a freshly restored and very much infuriated Marian of Locksley. She'd had vengeance in her eyes, and a son's life to save. The Outlaw's wife gladly made use of the silver blade in her blind fury before going after the Evil Queen who'd killed her husband after she'd let herself out of her vault. Regina had encountered Robin on her way to the sheriff's office, where she supposed she'd find the Savior, and she hadn't taken pity, just as Marian wouldn't when she caught up with her.

A tear tracking down his cheek, Gaston wished he'd had the courage to tell only woman he'd ever loved how he'd really felt about her while he'd had a chance. He could have asked for his father's assistance and requested that he send help in form of troops to defeat the ogres that had befallen Avonlea _before_ Belle had become desperate enough to summon the Dark One, but he'd been too anxious to please the man who'd had his eye on the ailing kingdom. If he'd done as his heart had commanded all those years ago, she'd most probably never have gone with the imp that now lay dead on the ground beside her, and they all would have had their happy ending, he thought as he wandered head-on into the chaos, watched by the Snow Queen, whose lips curved upwards in a slow, triumphant smile. Having smelled a rose and chosen to awaken it was the smartest thing she'd ever done, she decided, sighing softly and humming to herself as she began walking towards the sheriff's office to finish what she'd started, the music box in her hand.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Uh-oh… Don't say it: I know…! I wonder what will really happen tomorrow on the mid-season finale! I hope they don't really kill off anyone I like.<em>**


End file.
